EWW!!! Rats!

There has been a problem with critters under the house for a while, I'm sure. I can't seem to get husband that worked up about it. No big surprise. He grew up in a rat-trap, so since we have a clean house he just doesn't equate.

I noticed evidence near the crawl space in the garage about a month ago. The dogs had fits for a few nights when it was really cold out a few weeks ago. husband was nonplussed. I bought traps and made him set them. To no avail. I called an exterminator who was certain that it must be racoons and set a trap in the back yard with marshmallows that I have had to keep the dogs away from for over a week, to no avail.

Tonight I'm unloading the car from a big shopping trip, and about the sixth trip in I look at the trap through my reading glasses from far away - ie: I can't see it - and see that the concrete is really lumpy. And it has pink feet. Ack! That thing had to be three pounds if it was an ounce!

So, we have just now had the discussion that not only do new traps need to be bought, sheet metal and drywall and foam and whatever needs to be plastered up on the wall to cover any holes that bring these critters under the house!

And this critter gitter guy needs to come back out and examine shtuff. Because I didn't pay $145 for him to leave a trap at my house so that we could do the work!

I'd talk to someone from your nearest county/area agricultural extension. The problem is that plaster/drywall, etc., even with some sort of metal mesh reinforcement, is barely going to slow a rat down.

These critters are more than capable of gnawing through galvanized plumbing. Not only that, they can get through quarter-sized openings.

Rats creep me out with their long, hairless tail. difficult child wanted rats for Christmas, but I knew she wouldn't keep up with cleaning the cage and they need to be able to get out and run around (I won't have an animal caged all the time)...and with 6 cats. Yeah. Not happening.

I would definitely contact the exterminator. They should be able to differentiate the damage/noise between a raccoon and a rat. If you paid him $145, he should at least take care of the rat problem. Just, please, please, please, don't let him use sticky traps.

You could humanely trap them and ship them here to be easy child's pet Linus 's new friends

On a serious note, I can handle difficult child's pet rat, I would be FREAKED if wild rats were creeping up under my house and in through the walls. Indeed, the can chew through most anything. Hope your critter gitter gets to the git to get them all gitting!

Yup, sick that critter gitter on 'em! Although we've had pet rats, I have really no regard for the wild ones. They are very destructive. We get wood rats/pack rats/roof rats out where we live. Plus lots of deer and field mice. I can't seem to convince husband to keep his tool shed closed up, so it's become a rat condo and I detest going in there to look for anything because everything is either chewed up or pooped on.

In years past, we had a few of them in the attic, and one or two that got stuck in the walls and died. Ugh, that's the nastiest smell to have lingering in your house in the summer. One year one of them got stuck in the second story subfloor and chewed its way out through the ceiling in my dining room! Thankfully, the exterminator we hired got all the entrance holes fixed and we haven't had a problem in about 10+ years.

Critter guy is coming out this morning to check under the house and set a bunch of rat traps. He wouldn't go under the house before because he thought (I didn't) that there were racoons under there. He'd better not charge me an arm and a leg!

Rats and most rodents do not like the sound of rock and roll music....proven fact. They don't like the smell of peppermint oil.....proven fact. Pine oil if inhaled over a period of time can give them tumors....proven fact.

If you have peppermint oil....put some on cotton balls and leave it in inconspicuous places and put a radio under the crawl space with rock and roll - the raunchier the better. Rats do not like to inhabit where they think people will be and something about the music makes them vacate. I told my Mom to do this with her squirrels and a few Ozzy songs and they were gone. No joke.

I really think however it was the sound of the buzz in the radio. My pet rats liked Beethoven and Dvorjak a lot.

The radio worked with the skunks as well. I put one in each room, tuned to a different station, and blasted it. Had to solve it myself...since Animal Control, Fish and Game, and every exterminator I called didn't want anything to do with them.

Like KTM I was shocked that my regular (annual contract, no less) exterminator would NOT come pick up the rat in the trap. I sure as heck wasn't going to do it. Fortunately I had one beer drinking red neck neighbor who didn't hesitate a minute. Of course I was thirty then and it took over an hour to talk him out the door and home to his wife.

by the way I learned two things about rats that may come in handy for others. Rats nest in dense landscaping. Darn my backyard looked so pretty before I found that out. Rats adore nesting in sealed boxes of books and papers. Ex and I had saved our college texts etc. in sturdy sealed boxes only to have a family of rats eat and poop thru the whole bunch. Eeeuw!